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Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Hello again everyone! I’m back again to show you everything that I bought at IMATS last Saturday. If you haven’t already seen my IMATS Experience post, which has a bunch of pictures, you should definitely check it out. But for now, let’s take a look at my haul!

And here’s everything in no particular order. I’ll try to tell you how much everything was as much as I can remember:

Ben Nye Cream Foundation (??) in Pale Biscotte:

I’m not actually sure that this is a foundation, it might be a concealer, but it is fairly thin, so I think it’s more likely a foundation. As you can see by the “tester” label, this was a free sample from the Ben Nye booth. There was a little bowl of these with a sign saying everyone should take one, so I did, of course. It’s fairly smooth and a pretty good match for my skin, but I haven’t tried it out on my entire face yet. I did, however, use it as an under-eye concealer to touch up my makeup after IMATS, though, and it worked pretty nicely, even without a powder to set it.

Morphe Brush Cleaner and Disinfectant Spray:

While I have the ELF brush sanitizer spray, I absolutely hate the scent of it, so I picked this little guy up to try. It was only $4. I’ve tried it once, and I realised after spraying it on the first 10 brushes that it needs to be rinsed off, so washing my brushes that night took a little longer than expected, but it does a pretty good job.

Morphe Brushes Single Shadow in #11:

This was a last minute impulse buy. My friend was getting one of these shadows, and I saw this one and swatched it, and pretty much had to have it. They had a 3 for $5 deal on, so my friend got one more, and I gave her back about a $1.60 for this shadow. It’s super soft and almost creamy, despite being a powder shadow. Its also really pigmented, and the colour is sooo pretty!

Morphe Brushes – C310 Large Soft Fan brush:

I honestly can’t remember how much this brush was, but none of the brushes I got from the Morphe Brushes booth was more than $5, and they all came to only $21. This one was probably about $4. I’d been wanting to get a fan brush for a while for highlighter… However, it was not until I was taking these pictures and going over my purchases that I remembered I don’t actually own a highlighter. I’m working on picking one out at the moment, so any suggestions in the comments would be awesome, or if you use a fan brush for anything else, let me know. That said, this brush is really fluffy and soft!

Morphe Brushes – C225 Mini Liner brush:

I already have a liner brush, but I figure it’s good to have two, in case, say, I wanted to use one for black gel liner and one for my eyebrows, or something like that. I think this one was $3. It’s basic, but still as soft as a brush that needs to be this stiff can be.

Morphe Brushes – C250-0 (Pointed Liner??) brush:

There’s something incredibly adorable about this brush! I think it was another $2 brush, and the hairs are just tiny! It comes to a super-thin point, and I think it would be great for getting a really precise line, which is why I picked it up. If all else fails, it would be a fantastic nail art brush!

Morphe Brushes – C149 Small Round Contour brush:

This is just a simple contour brush. It feels a little rough just to stroke, but on the eye it’s perfectly soft. It’s also a fair bit smaller than my ELF contour brush, so it’s great for a more precise eye look. I think this brush was $3.

Morphe Brushes – Retractable Lip Brush:

I think this was one of the most expensive brushes I got. I think it was $5, though it might have been $4. I got this primarily because I have several potted lip balms that I hate sticking my fingers into. The fact that it’s retractable means it can come with me in my purse, which is definitely a plus!

Morphe Brushes – Angled Brush:

And finally, for my brushes at least, I picked up this angled brush as a back-up blush brush. I currently use an odd bamboo ELF brush for blush, and it’s a little scratchy. This one is likely now to become my primary blush brush, because it’s a lot softer, and I feel like it picks up and distributes colour better on my cheeks! This brush was probably $4.

Red Cherry DEL Lashes:

At the Red Cherry booth, all the lashes were $2.60, plus tax. Also, if you bought 5 or more pairs, you could get a free nail polish, so of course I got 5! Though if I was going to get more than 5, I would have come back later to cheat the system and get another polish… But I didn’t. ANYWAYS…

First, I picked up this pair. I’m not great at wearing lashes, but Red Cherry lashes have a very thin band, plus this pair looks super natural, and like they’ll just add some really nice length!

Red Cherry #503 Lashes:

Next I got the 503s, which look a little more dramatic, with thicker and thinner parts. It’s also a fair bit longer than the DELs. Another pair I’m excited to try out.

Red Cherry #601 Lashes:

These lashes look a lot like the 503s, but one pair is a little shorter and more natural looking. I think the more natural one is this one, but it’s difficult to tell! Either way, I’m sure they’ll both look great on!

Red Cherry DW (Demi-Wispy) Lashes:

Heading to IMATS, and considering the love for these lashes from so many different YouTubers, this is one of the two things I knew I was going to buy! It doesn’t matter the brand, but lots of bloggers and YouTubers love the Demi Wispy lashes, so I had to give them a try. They look a little messy in the package, but a little poking when I took them out of the box tidied them up a bit, and they just look fantastic on! Here’s picture from when I wore them the other day:

So yeah, I’m pretty much in love.

Red Cherry Flared Short Black Individual lashes:

Finally, I got these as a lighter alternative to false lashes. I figured I could sick a couple of these on the outside corner or outside half of my lash line for a little extra length and drama. Also, placing these single lashes is a fair bit easier than getting a whole lash band down straight on your lash line, I’ve found!

Princess Nail Polish in Silver Mining:

This is the nail polish that I got for buying all those lashes! It’s not a brand I think anyone’s ever heard of, but hey, who’s going to complain about free polish? It’s also a really pretty blue-silver metallic, and almost gives a foil effect on the nail. Here’s a swatch of it on my nails after a couple days wear:

Combined with my Out the Door and Essie base coat, it barely has any chip wear. So I’m pretty impressed.

Beauty Treats Green Tea Makeup Remover Cleansing Tissues:

These wipes were 2 for $5. There were several other scents/formulas, but I really like green tea products and scents, so I got two of the same. I think there was also Collagen, Rose, Cucumber scents as options. I’m glad I picked these up, they have a nice, light, fresh scent, and they do a pretty good job at taking off most of my makeup. Mascara not included, but waterproof mascara is a pretty tough job for most products! I’ve also used them every day since Saturday and my skin hasn’t had a melt down of any kind (breakouts, dryness, rashes, excess oiliness, etc.).

Make Up For Ever HD Foundation in N115:

It’s always a good sign when swatching a foundation is a complete waste of my time:

As I mentioned a little earlier, there were two things I went into IMATS knowing I was going to purchase, and this was the other one. This was the most expensive purchase I made that day, at $33 (which is still $9 off the Sephora price!). I almost didn’t bother picking this up, even though I’ve been wanting to try it for ages, because some blog posts from last year talked about MUFE being 40% everything, so I was pretty disappointed to find this less than $10 off. Still, in the end, I wanted it, and I had plenty of money left after picking up everything else I wanted, so I got it. I’m happy I did because it’s both nice and has really nice coverage. Also, the colour is literally perfect on my skin!

***

So, that’s everything I got! All in all, I spent just over $80, and I feel like I got a lot for that money!

Oh, and here are a couple pictures I forgot to include in my last post.

My ugly-as-hell glowing orange IMATS bracelet! Seriously guys? Orange? Couldn’t these have been a nice colour like Pink or Red?

And a closer shot of my eye make-up and my heavily mascara’d eyelashes:

I love this shot of me, which is part of why I’m including it, but it does also give you a really good shot of what my makeup looked like.

Also, if you are interested, I can do a Face of the Day post and show you all the products I used for this look, but unless there’s interest I don’t think it’s necessary, since all my good pictures of my makeup have been posted already! Let me know what you think!

And let me know if you have tried any of the products that I bought at IMATS! Thanks so much for reading once again. <3

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Hey everyone! As I mentioned in my last post, IMATS was yesterday (for me anyways, though it was also open today)! I had a great time and spent a lot of money. I will be posting a haul post and maybe a more detailed face of the day as well, I wanted to share my experience and all my pictures with you first.

Warning: Very picture heavy post!!

Inside the convention centre:

It was pretty busy, even though there were so few different exhibitors/vendors at the show, and sometimes it was hard to get at the products at any of the booths! In the pictures above you can see some of the vendors and lots of people! There were also lots of awesome artists showing off their skills on models, like this one below:

Probably more packed than any of the other booths for most of the day was the Make Up For Ever booth. Here’s a picture of the crush of people around it around noon-ish. My friend is somewhere in that crowd; she waited a good 45 minutes for her order!

There was also the very cool “Makeup Meuseum,” which I believe was a collection of movie and television makeup, and possibly some student work as well! It was all amazingly well-done!

Not a man. I could have sworn this was a person!

Brit and I also watched a couple of the panels, partly just for a break where we could sit down, partly because, once you’re done shopping there isn’t much to do… but also just because they were interesting. The woman below is Taylor Chang-Babaian, who’s a pretty big-time artist who has worked on magazines, her own books, and even an Evanescence music video, which I thought was pretty awesome!

Quick look at my makeup, hair, and outfit of the day:

I’ve never realised before how thin that shirt is, but flash shoots right through it! Guess I should’ve worn a prettier bra! Haha!

And here’s a look at my friend Brit as well:

This might not be the picture she would have chosen for her close-up face picture, but the other ones I think she looks depressed, and this is my blog! =P Also, as you can see, she went for a much more natural look than I did!

Brit was pretty obsessed with “collecting” pictures of all the painted up models. Here’s her with one of the entries into the Battle of the Brushes competition:

And possibly the highlight of my day, I got to meet one of my favourite Youtubers, Karissa (SaturdayNightsAlrite). If you haven’t seen her before, you definitely should go check her out! She was really nice, and it was so great getting to meet her, especially since she’s lives in Australia! But she has family in Salmon Arm, so she was here for IMATS!

And here are all the entries into the Battle of the Brushes competition:

This girl was my absolute favourite! She has an anglerfish on her head! Also, her makeup is really cute! So disappointed that she didn’t place!

I’m not sure she deserved it, but this next design worn third place!:

This one didn’t place, but it was another of my favourit looks:

Fire girl:

She moved a lot faster than some of the other models, so it was nearly impossible to get a picture of her.

This next girl won the competition. Not sure she was the best, but it was really nicely done. Also, the artist was so insanely happy to win! The winner got $1000, as well as one of the cute little trophies.

Didn’t like this next one, but she does remind me of Effie from the Hunger Games movie:

The girl from earlier, who got second place in the competition:

And the final entry:

And Brittany continued to collect. Anglerfish girl was her favourite too:

We had to take a picture in front of the giant IMATS poster before we left for the day:

And that’s all my pictures, aside from my purchases. I’ll save those for my next post though! Did you end up going to IMATS? Do you wish you had? Let me know in the comments, and check back in a couple days for my haul!

Disclaimer

I will always state if a product was sent to me for review purposes, but all reviews are simply my own opinions and experiences. I will never allow my opinions to be bought. Other people's experiences might be different from my own.

If you disagree strongly with something I've said, feel free to comment or send me a message! It's great to get feedback from others!